Way overdue. Let's hope a sensible balance can be achieved realizing people come to enjoy the beach (while most providing income to the local economy) while others need to use it for transit to provide services for those visiting. No easy solutions to this one, but necessary for long term preservation. Below is an article from the VA Pilot.Currituck beaches face traffic issue
By Jeff Hampton
The Virginian-Pilot
© September 25, 2011
CURRITUCK COUNTY, N.C.
On a beach where the sand is a playground, a highway and a refuge, the question is who gets priority - a 3-year-old girl with her plastic bucket, a 30-ton cement truck or a herd of wild horses?
Currituck County officials have labored over the problem for nearly 20 years, passing ordinances to limit speed and establish parking areas. Still, traffic on the beach north of Corolla gets thicker and conflicts persist.
Now comes the latest attempt to keep the peace.
A citizens committee appointed by the Currituck County Board of Commissioners has made several recommendations, including putting up more signs, establishing safe places to deflate and inflate tires and performing a study on a permit system, the most controversial option.
"We're just trying to find out what we can do," said Vance Aydlett, chairman of the Currituck County Board of Commissioners. "We've got to get our act together and figure out how we're going to skin this cat. There are no easy solutions."
During the summer, thousands of people drive off the end of N.C. 12 just north of Corolla and into deep sand that is the beginning of an 11-mile beach strand stretching to the Virginia line.
A local population drives back and forth daily to work and shop. Construction trucks rumble through constantly. Lines of vehicles in wild-horse tours pass through regularly. They all prefer to drive near the surf on the hard sand left behind at low tide.
Meanwhile, the hard sand known as the foreshore is also where children play, families set up umbrellas and beach chairs and anglers cast lines in the water. Some are there for the week, renting beach homes. Others come just for the day. Occasionally, wild horses gather right in the middle of it all.
At high tide, the hard sand is under water, people move back, and traffic has to travel in rough, deeper sand closer to the dunes. That sand is a bumpy ride, tough on vehicles and where inexperienced drivers get stuck.
Since at least 1994, county officials have established ordinances to attempt control. Sunbathers are supposed to leave the foreshore open. Vehicles should park perpendicular to the ocean in the middle of the beach between the surf and the dunes. Drivers should go only 15 miles per hour when within 300 feet of people; otherwise, the speed limit is 35. Everybody is supposed to stay at least 50 feet away from wild horses.
During the summer, deputies on all-terrain vehicles try to enforce it all.
"Two deputies go back and forth up there 10 hours a day," said Lt. Jason Banks with the Currituck County Sheriff's Office. "They're busy the whole time."
The most controversial option is to establish a permit system that could limit how many vehicles may drive onto the beach. The committee recommended a study to see how that would work. Many other beaches use permit systems, but they don't have the same situation where people are driving for work and for recreation on the same beach. Commissioners are mixed on that plan.
"I will never vote for a permit," said Butch Petrey, a Currituck County commissioner.
But Aydlett and Commissioner Paul Martin could support a permit system, they said.
Tourism is Currituck's most lucrative industry; it's been called the county's golden-egg-laying goose. In Corolla, real estate and rental companies, restaurants and other stores with hundreds of employees depend on the visitors.
The question comes up often: Is leaving the situation alone bad for business, or would a permit system and tighter controls drive people away?
"That's all to be determined," Aydlett said.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Traffic rules being looked at on Carova Beaches
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4 comments:
Sorry Butch but the horses are already out of the barn. This aint 1987 anymore - time for permits lest a little kid gets killed which will frankly is only a matter of time.
Permits should be free to homeowners and residents, renters get them included for the week in their houses, all others have to buck up.
Either that or pave a road. And that ain't going to happen.
Once a death occurs, the new road will be laid out. Meanwhile, a system which denies 'cement trucks', etc. during the height of tourist season may be in order. A system which allows renters to traverse up the beach once and back home again once may be in order (at low tide only). A system which allows true residents travel at low tide only may be in order. A system which allows a large! parking lot/beach access facility near the on-ramp for visitors may be in order. A system which requires non-resident property owners who rent their property for tax purposes to gain a permit for the specific weeks allowed by the tax code for vacationing at the said property (whew!) may be in order. All other traffic by permit at low tide only. Emergency vehicles excepted for emergency purpose only.
All these yankees move down here because all the rules, laws and taxes make it a terrible place to live where there from. They move here and try to change the rules,laws and taxes so its just as sorry as where they came from.Its really ashame. I cant understand it to save my life.The last thing we need is more rules, laws and taxes. I beleive most people dont need to be babysitted by all these so called do gooders.If you have to be told not to litter,speed and watch out for children and wildlife maybe you shouldnt be here. North Carolina people are very proud of there beaches. Now some of the locals wont be able to afford to take there familys to the beach. I guess thats what they want in the first place. The privleged can drive while the poor walk. [so wrong]
Permits are the best course of action. Is it really less expensive to pay sheriffs deputies to park and watch the ocean an harass people driving down the beach.
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